The World vs. AIDS, India's Growing AIDS Problem

[Guest guest]

From the February 2004 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 51, No. 2)

The World vs. AIDS, 2004, India's Growing AIDS Problem

Sanchita Sharma, Hindustan Times (centrist), New Delhi, India, Dec.

5, 2003.

Have you ever met someone who is HIV-positive? Going by the

government's statistics, you must have. There are 4.58 million people

living with HIV/AIDS in India, says the National AIDS Control

Organization (NACO). That's 0.8 percent of the country's population,

roughly one infected person in a group of 100.

Think about it. You probably had dinner with an HIV-positive person

at the last wedding you attended, or rubbed shoulders with more than

one while shopping at the India International Trade Fair. Your child

may be at school with HIV-positive children without your being aware

of it. It's likely that no one in the school knows either.

For if their HIV-positive status were known, chances are they would

be thrown out of school, like 5-year-old Benjy and 8-year-old Benson

in Thiruvananthapuram [capital of Kerala]. If they are " lucky, " like

the Kerala siblings, their plight may make headlines. Union Health

Minister Sushma Swaraj may intervene and hug them, and get color

posters made of the now familiar embrace for national and

international AIDS campaigns.

The school would be forced to take them back, but once the photo ops

are over, they would become untouchable again and be asked to sit

away from other students. No other child would come near them. That's

what's happening to Benjy and Benson. Their grandfather—their parents

and elder brother died of AIDS—is happy that they are at least

getting an education. " I hope they get to study and play with other

children in the future, " he said on his Delhi visit for World AIDS

Day this year.

When it comes to HIV, discrimination is still the norm. Many prefer

not to confirm their positive status and be ostracized. While the

National AIDS Prevention and Control Policy ensures protection of

human rights, it does not have teeth. To give it legal sanction,

Swaraj announced recently that she would table the AIDS legislation

protecting the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in

Parliament.

Courts have been proactive in ensuring rights, but the trickle-down

effect has been just that—a trickle. In 1997, Mumbai's High Court

ruled that HIV-positive people cannot be denied jobs on account of

their status. But while state institutions can be legally forced to

hire a person, little enforcement exists in the private sector. Many

firms insist on a health checkup before hiring prospective employees,

and if a person tests HIV-positive, he or she is denied a job under

another pretext.

People with AIDS are considered outsiders. This perception is

incorrect. In India, the infection is increasing the fastest in

monogamous married women. Now, out of every three HIV-positive

people, one is a woman.

If you think NACO doesn't know its numbers, think again. Actual AIDS

cases and deaths apart, NACO's projected numbers are based on data

collected through sentinel surveillance at prenatal clinics, where

pregnant women go for tests before delivery. In such states as

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, and

Nagaland, more than 1 percent of women going for institutional

deliveries are HIV-positive. These are not sex workers but married

monogamous women, who barely speak to a man other than their husband.

In India, about 80 percent of HIV infection spreads through

heterosexual sex, with 89 percent of those infected being in the 18-

49 age group. Most people have the HIV-1 virus, which is globally the

predominant strain. HIV-1 mutates easily and has many subtypes. While

most subtypes are found in Africa, three strains—B, C, and E—

predominate in the rest of the world. HIV-1 subtype C—which has a

higher potential for heterosexual transmission—is the dominant strain

in India.

The enormity of the problem has even turned the usually coy Swaraj

into a champion of condoms; it has also prompted her to push for AIDS

legislation and to offer free AIDS treatment to mothers, children

younger than 15 years, and people living with HIV, beginning April 1,

2004.

HIV/AIDS can be contained—there are lessons from Brazil and

neighboring Thailand—but to do that you have to talk about it outside

conference centers reverberating with NGO rhetoric.

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